From condensed, erratic box-cycled formations toward jag-cut kaleidoscopic reel Chicago, Illinois-based technical/avant-garde death metal trio GIGAN arrive steeled for celestial volatility before steadily spiraling out into surrealistic expanse as this much anticipated fifth full-length album reintroduces the cosmic horror-hammer and lysergic revel they’ve long developed. An increasingly transformative sensation spilled across the last ~eighteen years, the brain wrinkles which guide ‘Anomalous Abstractigate Infinitessimus‘ offer psychic reinforcement of general characteristics alongside some considerable alchemic abstraction, a continuation of the grand alchemic experiment. As is the case with most any quality technical death metal craft the experiential value of this work lies in the dance of erratic and esoteric feats which color the conversation it maintains with the attentive listener’s ear as their work expertly draws the line before crossing it back and forth into charmingly stated delirium void of pretense.

Gigan formed circa 2006 by way of founder and visionary Eric Hersemann a fellowe who’d made some waves back in the early 2000’s primarily in shaping the vision of Diabolic‘s surprising shift to tech-death on ‘Infinity Through Purification‘ before he’d joined Hate Eternal for the ‘I, Monarch‘ tour having obviously proven himself a quick asset to two bands who were basically hitting their peaking moments at the time. The hype around this band was palpable at the time for the sake of their early line-up featuring bassist/vocalist Randy Piro who reinforced the connection to Hate Eternal and the broader success of that third album, probably factoring into their signing to Napalm Records beyond an impressive, brutal EP (‘Footsteps of Gigan‘, 2007). I don’t know how much folks remember from this era of death metal but tech-death had been both an exciting wilderness of possibilities and an annoyingly derivative glom of soulless garbage so, this band always had something impressive about them but revisiting the early albums will take some patience to sort out what was unique about their presentation to start. By the second album (and first for Willowtip) they were calling it “psychedelic extreme metal” if that says anything.

Heavy use of guitar effects on one of the rhythm guitar tones, creeping sci-fi synths in prominent placement, and leads which felt like a variety of phaser fire modes explored at a firing range made those early Gigan albums entirely unique at face value where ringing dissonance, jazzy math-metallic fusion and such made for a uniquely chaotic sound. From my point of view the brutality of their approach helped keep what was essentially a stream of consciousness built style in readable form but this’d kind of been knocked out of skull when ‘Multi​-​Dimensional Fractal​-​Sorcery And Super Science‘ released in 2013 a bit of a paradigm shift which was still brutal but just as often slowed down to find ‘Obscura‘-esque grooves and generate atmosphere which wasn’t pure chaos in every case and that dynamic notably arrived alongside now longtime drummer Nate Cotton, providing a key anchor for the next two records from the band. I recall reviewing ‘Undulating Waves of Rainbiotic Iridescence‘ (2017) but I’m not sure I agree with my past self finding it sonically restrained, less than avant-garde in some sense though it was comparatively less eager to burst through a thousand ideas per hour. In hindsight I would say it was a “matured” vision and one that felt singularly contained, a considered/cohesive listening experience.

My thoughts on Gigan‘s previous album are set distant enough in the past here seven years later that my general response to a new album from these folks was optimistic but without any specific expectation beyond weirding, machine-like movements and hyper flourished guitar work via their Eldritch/cosmic horror fueled headspace. ‘Anomalous Abstractigate Infinitessimus‘ definitely looks like their signature from afar with album artwork from Max Winter who has created cover pieces for each of their albums since 2011’s ‘Quasi-Hallucinogenic Sonic Landscapes‘. As we take a closer look and listen to the album itself there are some obvious up front differences one may or may not notice but my ear went right to the drum production which to my own ear has a louder, more resonant presence which is not only spacious in its setting but has a more live-in-studio, or, a lived in sound compared to some of their more guitar-forward releases. Otherwise the circus is in town and that means ominous and increasingly frantic pieces frame our introduction to the full listen starting with the ringing dread-cloud of odd-fingered chords which steadily escalate opener “Trans-Dimensional Crossing of the Alta-Tenuis” ’til it comes time to break into the type of crooked yet confrontational verve Hersemann often breaks the ice with. The main riff that builds and splits apart into insectoid variation is a great example of high-dexterity guitar work with a simple effect, a swarm of flies keeping a three piece suit afloat and gesturing. The movement is already setting a high bar for technique but without presenting the usual sounds and the song is otherwise anchored by its room-wrecking brutality, an effect of the drum patternation which is almost deceptively surreal.

“Ultra-Violet Shimmer and Permeating Infra-sound” flows naturally downhill from there, intensifying in speed and complexity as each guitar channel crawls downward with said flow of space-faring locust speech. A surreal and manic piece which is half the length of its preceding opener Gigan‘ve done well to get right to what makes them unique and altogether original with a particularly chaotic song that recalls the frantic musings of their 2011 debut. If this isn’t extreme enough, and if you think it is you’re in for a freakout later on, “Square Wave Subversion” and the insane 10+ minute pull of “Emerging Sects of Dagonic Acolytes” likewise feed together, going the way of chaos before eventually stepping out of their bizarro void vacuum of noisome delirium before heading back in for more. I think for many that might be the first of many apices of extreme ‘out there’ showmanship you’ll find on this album before Hersemann begins to take his time a bit more heading into Side B. Even with all the years of this fellowe’s work under my belt as a listener that fourth song took some real dedication to stick with as its challenging tornadic boil catches some wildfire.

If any of this comes across more like a fever dream than a death metal album, sure, but I think that’d always been a primary characteristic of Gigan‘s unique willingness to dive into sonic extremes. I think it is important to remind folks how the plain rigidity of ‘old school’ revivalism and the “gaming” of dissonant phrasing for thoughtless/dry releases interrupted the trajectory of bands inspired by unthinkable stuff like Portal in the mid-2010’s and I say this because a song like “Erratic Pulsitivity and Horror” reminds me of of where artists left off before nostalgia aped the mindshare for a decade. If you’re keeping track of the higher quality releases of 2024 (this record included) that level of unique and sometimes original craft has been more prevalent of late and I’d found this particular track showcased Hersemann‘s own signature as well as the fostered connection with canonical death metal, technical or otherwise, which keeps things readable despite how outrageous his use of higher-speed runs and otherworldly guitar effects might get. In simpler terms Side B is kinda classic Gigan in the sense that the second half of any of their albums finds an unexpected depth in its charge, another dimension beyond their starting point. In this particular case that second half is especially dense with activity ’til the dizzying drain-and-yet rush of closer “Ominous Silhouettes Cast Across Gulfs of Time” clinches an appropriately grand psychotic feeling of an endpoint suited for ‘Anomalous Abstractigate Infinitessimus‘.

As an experience ‘Anomalous Abstractigate Infinitessimus‘ feels like an unceasing rocket into a nebular cloud, the sort of record I’d probably imagined listening to Mithras in the early 2000’s where the trip isn’t so much interrupted by dips in momentum but given to a barrage of a different coloration or imaginative moodiness at every turn. There is dread and horror in the severity of these rhythms, of course, as death metal built on demanding physical action but also a wonderment one’d naturally liken to an unguided psychedelic experience where the mind is its own deranged missile. In other words the core appeal of Gigan is not only intact after so many years but almost unceasing in its vision which requires new atmospheres to feed the worlds it generates. There is some real joy in both the familiarity of the artist’s own hand and abstraction which comes without fully blurring away the satisfaction of riff-based death metal aggression. It makes for a grand return for the trio, uncompromised and very welcome amidst the current extreme metal landscape as an original. A very high recommendation.

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